In-Group Favoritism in Natural and Minimal Groups

We examine giving to an in-group member relative to an out-group member in the third party (other-other) dictator game. Individuals are randomly assigned to real groups under a “weak" and “strong" condition, and also assigned to artificial groups using the minimal group paradigm. We compare the effect of the type of group on subject's allocation of an amount of money between an in-group member and a person who is not a member of the in-group, using a within-subject design with repeated measures. We find that the weak and strong real group conditions bracket the minimal group condition, in contrast to prior findings